sooo... ive been thinking alot and will be building a second plug to pull my mold off of. this one has too many issues with it to make a mold from and i am impatient and want it done , so i will be continuing it as a one off hull. soo... here is where it stands now. i marked and drilled the free flood holes, roughed in the reactor intake scoops, and scribed the lines on the deck. after looking at photos, im missing 6 free flood holes not on the plans... hmmm... and i need to drill them out, and drill out the vents in the conning tower. the diveplanes for the stern have been roughed in as well.

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp

thanks Matt. that means alot coming from you! ive learned alot, and will be making my IXD plug the master for the mold, rather than a one off. i learned scribing all those little hatches is a giant pain in the kester. i have a much better understanding as to the work that goes into making the masters for these submarines. its alot of work! my hat is off to you guys that make these for the rest of us.

edit, thanks Matt!

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp

i finally got this hull apart after 4 hours of cursing, scratching my head, prying, cursing some more. the cut went very nicely and the little hobby saw i used worked wonders, it removed so little material i think i dont have any reconstruction to do. i finally broke down and poured acetone down the stern in the hole where the prop shaft will go. that made life a little easier. here is where the alfa sits now.

and apart

with the advice of Matt Thor, i decided to do a Z cut. it was alot of work, but it does look nice. tonight i plan on starting to make the free flood holes square.

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp

i started making the free flood holes square. i learned something here! before i was trying to do it before i removed the foam. what a pain! removed foam and its running like clock work!

bondo is drying on the hull now. i made a few boo-boos while splitting the hull. i got a little impaitent and chipped the hull in a few spots at the seperation line. once its dry, i will resume filing the free flood holes. thats it for now folks!

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp

today i started putting the hull back together. or should i say started to figure out how to put the hull together when its in the water. i glued in 4 bulkheads, my logic here is that i will mount alignment pins in 2 of them, and the corresponding bulkheads will have holes the pins will drop into. i will still need a few alignment tabs to keep the hull in alignment, but i think this will help as well. time will tell. any way, tomorrow i will glue in the pins, and drill the holes. enjoy!

forward bulkheads-

rear bulkheads-

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp

i am happy to announce more progress has been made on alfa. i added the indexing tabs to the lower hull today and re-designed my alignment tab for the rear. yep! i deleted the bulkhead and added a piece of plastic in its place. in theory i think it should work.

and last but not least, the lower hull tabs!

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp

Dark knight, Great build you got going here. I'll be watching this thread very closely. Might try to make my own Alfa someday although in a much smaller scale like 1/96 (to cut down on fiberglass and resin cost). BTW, can you show how you were able to scribe the torpedo doors on the curved bow. More power.

redboat219 wrote:Dark knight, Great build you got going here. I'll be watching this thread very closely. Might try to make my own Alfa someday although in a much smaller scale like 1/96 (to cut down on fiberglass and resin cost). BTW, can you show how you were able to scribe the torpedo doors on the curved bow. More power.

Thanks redboat! to be honest with you, i took a good long look at my plans and these two photographs

and i drew them out in pencil multiple times until i got the shape to match the photographs. then i marked them in sharpie and scribed them. sorry, i didnt take photos of that process.... as for costs so far, i might have $70-80 dollars in this between the bondo, fiberglass and foam plug. i thought of going 1/96th, but i felt like the hull would be too small inside for what i wanted to do with this sub. even in 1/72nd scale, it seems cramped compared to that monster IXD2 im building.

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp

she is a little crusty isnt she? i free handed it. if you look close i didnt get them to perfectly match one another. looking back, i wish i had made a template. i still could i suppose, for V2. ill let you know how it turns out and ill post it up if it works!

Life is a matter of luck, and the odds in favor of success are no way enhanced by extreme caution. - Erich Topp